


Breath of Ashes

by Denzer



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief Mention of Vomit, Burns, Come Swallowing, Edgeplay, F/M, Fire, Heart Attacks, Oral Sex, Overstimulation, Pre-Battle of Yavin (Star Wars), Rough Sex, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Author is Having an Absolute Blast, Wall Sex, with weird references to flatbed trucks and low fuel supply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27994173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Denzer/pseuds/Denzer
Summary: Dragons! Magic! Weird, quasi-worldbuilding references to flatbed trucks and carrots! And... WALL SEX!Yavin fortress, at the foot of the Hosnian Mountain range, is the last stronghold for humans in the Northern Wastes. But the largest dragon Rey has ever seen keeps attacking them and when Ben Solo is taken by it, Rey must decide whether she wants to live in fear, or die fighting to avenge him.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 63
Kudos: 96





	1. Carrots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AquaWolfGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquaWolfGirl/gifts).



She’s in the ash-fields when the siren starts up. The charred earth is good for carrots and Rey already has two sacks filled. She scans the horizon, sees nothing but clear, twilight-topped mountain, and turns to hurriedly drag the bags back to the truck. They’re heavy and they slow her down but she keeps going until, after less than a minute, the siren stops and starts again - _one klick out_. That’s gotta be a mistake. Nothing could fly that fast. 

The warning blare emanates from the Yavin’s western turret and she squints into the blaze of the setting sun to see if Ben is the one cranking it. There’s the glint of sunlight on red hair, turning it golden and shining. Fuck. Rey drops one sack and lugs the other over her shoulder, sprinting toward the truck. Hux never spots them until it’s too late. 

She sees it when she reaches the cab, tossing the sack into the flatbed so fast that the carrots tumble out across the metal. The sheer size of it stops her cold, frozen with one foot on the step rail, the other in the mud and her hands gripping the door-frame like she could push the image from her mind and into the metal. It’s black as the mountain shadows behind it, all but invisible except for the streaks of silver at the tips of its wings. It doesn’t fly like any she’s seen before, in a single straight line rather than the usual spiraling aeronautical display. The dragon’s fanged head is aimed straight at the castle. 

Rey throws herself into the driver's seat. She’ll never make it, though she’s only two minutes from the main gates. The dragon is too fast, but she has to try. Ben has to know she tried.

The engine won’t start, turning on a click that makes her bounce in the seat and slam her fists against the wheel. Extra seconds lost to Luke’s second rule - _Don’t let the fear cloud you. Confront it and keep moving._

It starts on the third try and Rey tears up the dirt track to the castle, gaze flicking wildly between the road and her grime-encrusted rear-view mirror. It’s a huge beast, monstrous, a wingspan half as wide as the castle itself and talon’s bigger than a grown man. It’s so close that the downdraft is already throwing whorls of burnt earth at the back of the car. 

The metal gate-chain clanks, she can hear it even over the roar of the engine and the screech of the monster behind her. They’re opening for her, though they must know she can’t make it. She slams her hand to the horn, blaring it to warn them, to tell them to stop. Jagged Beskar edges jerk upwards, relentless, and if the dragon breathes now, the fire will decimate the central courtyard along with anyone standing in it. 

Two figures step out and Rey blinks recognition at the shape of two bodies she would know in her sleep. Ben and Luke, rushing forward from the entrance, spacing themselves far apart so she’ll have room to drive between them and into the compound. Rey is screaming, though there’s no way they can hear her. The creature is louder than the siren, shrieking continuously, hammering at her ears and her focus. 

Ben raises his crossbow, aims so high that Rey knows the dragon must be right over her, and fires. The shrieking ends in a high crescendo and Luke follows suit as Ben re-loads. Behind them, the stonework is crumbling as talons dig into the battlements. A forked tail whips the ground behind Luke as the dragon uses the wall to spin toward them. When the truck passes him, Ben turns back, eyes trained high, and Luke reloads while he fires again. A blast of heat bursts the two rear tires of her truck as Rey tears through the gates. She spins to a stop and throws herself out of the cab. She's shouting as she races toward the lowering portcullis, though she’s not sure exactly what she’s saying. The gate drops so low she has to slide on her side to pass beneath it. 

She emerges to fire, raging in a blue arc over her head. The heat inside the bubble makes the air thick and her throat burns with it. Luke and Ben are standing closer, feet planted wide and arms raised high. She stands between them, lifts her hands, and draws from her stomach until the clear barricade pushes back another foot. 

The dragon is raging, gouging the stonework to jump away from the castle. One silver point of its wing breeches the arc and Rey sucks in a breath. The dragon screeches again, muted behind the protective barrier, and tears up lines of earth in a pacing rage before it lowers its head to spit flame directly at them. The three of them turn and lower their hands as one, meeting the rush of fire with a blaze of blue magic. Rey grunts at the force of it, the tips of her fingers burning hot. The second the dragon turns away to screech it’s fury at the mountains, Ben spins and throws his arm around her stomach, lifting her from the ground and racing back to the gates. Luke is ahead, already ducking beneath the metal and shouting at the pulley chamber. The Beskar shielding drops behind them and the plume of fire that sneaks through catches the back of his tunic. He pats at it, frowning, as he slowly walks toward them.

Ben had set her down but hadn’t let her go, her back tucked into his heaving ribs with the crossguard cam poking into her side until he pulls it higher onto his back. 

“Did you get the carrots?” Luke’s eyebrow is raised and his voice sardonic but hard. She hears Ben snort, feels the pump of it as he stifles a laugh and turns it into unconvincing throat-clearing. 

“Sorry, Master. I thought I had time.”

Luke closes his eyes, sighs, and directs his gaze at the precious metal roof that encloses the courtyard.

“You might have had, if the beast was spotted at a reasonable distance.” 

Above them, Hux ducks from the gangplank into a stone entryway, the light of his torch wavering shadows as he runs. Luke turns back to Ben and raises his finger, the burnt tips of his gloves still smoking, “Get her to the infirmary,” he says and it’s only then that Rey feels the welts on her palms begin to sting. Ben is already moving, releasing his hold only to reposition his arm so it’s slung across her back, his hand pressing her side until she could practically lift her legs from the ground and dangle there. 

They only make it a few steps before Luke calls again, Ben’s name so short in his mouth that they both freeze in place. He turns his head a little, not enough to make eye contact. 

“Don’t disobey orders again.”

Rey expects him to say ‘Yes, Master,’ but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a huge breath and walks away, almost dragging her. 

They don’t make the infirmary. They’re not even halfway to the underground chambers before he pushes her into the wall. Rey knows it’s because she asked him what order he’d ignored, that he doesn’t want to tell her, but she’s too distracted to ask again. 

His mouth is on her neck, desperate and scraping and she can tell he’s frowning with his eyes squeezed shut, spiraling, because he’s pushing his hips into her too hard. She turns her mouth to his ear and whimpers softly. He eases up, immediate, like she’d spoken the exact words he’d needed to hear. When he pulls back, it’s to grasp her wrists and hold them up to the torchlight. Her palms are covered in burns, pulsing pain in time with her racing heart. 

“Shit, Rey,” he whispers and leans down to blow on them, long and slow. 

“I’m okay,” her voice comes out breathless and she’s squirming her wrists in his grip, “Have you ever seen one that big before?” 

In the torchlight, his gaze is liquid, shining, and Rey can’t see anything but him. Her heart has been hammering since the siren started but now it’s faster than ever. For a minute, Ben looks afraid, like all of it is hitting him at once and he drops his gaze, tucking his chin. 

“When I couldn’t find you in the stores...” he mumbles and Rey doesn’t have time to reassure him before he’s kissing her, cupping the back of her head so the leather of his gloves scrapes against the stonework. She throws her arms around his neck, hands curled in to protect her sore skin and she can’t help him here but he doesn’t seem to need it because his free hand is roving over her, pulling at her pants, tugging till the material falls to a gather at her ankles. His gloved fingers dig into her bum and she hoists herself up, shins bumping the crossbow’s lateral quiver and boots hooked together between his knees. 

He drives her against the wall, chin pressing into her temple, his cock nudging at her centre in quick, tremulous jolts. She’s spinning with it, the fading terror, the sudden, urgent need. It’s stinging at her eyes and he hunches down to kiss the vulnerable skin of her neck with a hot, open mouth that threatens biting.

He pulls back to sink his teeth into the tip of his middle finger and yank his glove off and then his hand is between them, sliding, testing. Rey’s not quite wet enough, but that won’t stop him now, she knows, not when he’s thinking of how close he just came to watching her burn. She hears the clink of his belt the moment before the metal hits her inner thigh and then he’s lining himself up and pushing forward. 

Rey has to hold her breath, pressing down hard on his shoulders so she can raise herself higher, to watch him notche himself inside her, little by little. His eyes slip shut and he sighs a hard rush of air as he bottoms out. When he opens them, he’s back with her. 

“Can you take it?” he whispers and she’s barely nodded before he’s moving. He stares, his upper body tilted back a little so he can watch her face, fascinated by her reaction to each slam of his hips. The wall is cold on her back but his hand cups her bare ass so it doesn’t scratch her skin. He’s so deep that her thighs are pulling together, creating a space between his pelvis and hers. She doesn’t make a noise until he presses closer, barely pulling out at all, just grinding against her. There’s a responding rush inside her, blissful slippery heat, and they both moan at once. 

He urges her head forward into his shoulder, away from the wall, kisses the top of it, and pats so she knows to keep it there. Sliding fingers down her body, Ben uses both hands to hoist her higher, readjusting. When she drops back down, Rey almost tears her throat with the guttural cry she muffles into his shirt. His fingers tighten deep divots in her skin and all she can do now is hold onto him. She buries her head in the crook of his neck, the overpowering smell of magic and smoke, and Ben moves like there’s no more time, slamming her into the wall, grunting and hissing through gritted teeth. 

She feels his shoulders tighten, his neck stretching taut as he tips his head back. She moans for him, though she’s not close. She moans so he can let go. His heels shift, staggering under her weight before he shoves forward, crushing her into the wall. His mouth is clamped shut but she loves that sound he’s trying to hold back. He’s breathing hard through his nose and then he’s rigid; the arms holding her, the legs she's resting on, the length of him inside her. The sound she loves is coming despite his efforts to rein himself in. He pumps twice, and then again, so hard that the wall scratches her lower back through his spread fingers. Rey licks his neck, panting onto his wet skin until he slows and rolls his head back down to kiss her ear. 

“I love you,” he whispers into her hair, and presses his mouth hard there, “Leave the fucking veggies next time, ok?” 

It’s fear, adrenaline, all leaving him at once and his legs are shaking with it. Rey laughs and unhooks herself from him so he can lower her and tug her pants back into place. If she could cup his face, she would, but her hands are burning and she really needs some Bacta so instead she lets him notch her belt and catch his breath. 

“Ready?” he asks when he’s tucked himself away, and she nods, a slow grin spreading wider. 

“What did Luke tell you to do?”

Rey already has a fair idea because he won’t look at her, just readjusts the crossbow strap and clears his throat. When he meets her questioning stare, he draws himself taller, as if his height could somehow protect him from her. All Rey has to do is quirk an eyebrow and Ben melts like butter. 

“To stay back,” he says on an exhale, “Can’t control magic if you panic.”

“And what did you say?”

He winces, huffing a small laugh, and rubs at the strap across his chest. “I swore at him, told him I’d go through him to get to you.”

There is a bloom in her chest and she can’t stop it from rising up to heat her face. She reaches out to tug on his belt, short sharp pulls. “So dramatic.”

“Yeah,” he smiles, still wincing.

This time, when he puts his arm around her, he doesn’t press her against him. It’s a warm, comforting weight as they walk the halls, headed deeper into the belly of the fortress, where not even dragon-breath can reach.

  
  



	2. Wait for Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is absolutely STARVING after a long hunting trip... and there's more dragons!!!  
> Prep for a cliff-hanger ending here but we all know I'll inflict the HEA on everyone in a few days because I cannot stop with the tripe and idgaf!

Rey’s arrow misses the target by more than a foot, shooting straight past the wooden training boards and into the scrub. 

“Goddamn it!”

She considers hurling the crossbow to the ground but it’s Finn’s turn next and he’s waiting with a worried look that keeps shifting over her shoulder toward the fortress. When she tries to turn and see what he’s looking at, he captures her attention with an insult. 

“You’re a really terrible shot,” he tells her and there is good-natured humor there, but also nervousness. Finn’s only been with them for a month, trekking from the melted highway straight up to the gates with a bag full of rabbits he’d trapped as an entry-fee. Not that he’d needed one. Luke had never turned anyone away. 

“You should see her with a spear.”

The voice calls from behind her and Rey spins on her heel, drops the bow, and sprints up the hill toward Ben. He’s squeezing Poe’s shoulder, ducking out from under a deer they’re carrying back from the highlands. Behind him, Hux staggers under the extra weight and they struggle into the compound, pointedly ignoring them. 

Ben is filthy, covered in ash and spattered with blood from the terrible job he always does of gutting. He holds out his arms and Rey vaults into him with a bound that knocks him back two steps. He stinks of stale smoke and iron and his hair is greasy. When she kisses him, he tastes like berries and ash. It’s disgusting, but after days without him, it’s also delicious. 

“A spear?”

Finn has followed her, yet to pick up on the wide berth they are usually given when Ben comes back from a long hunt. He’s hanging back, shifting awkwardly with her discarded crossbow held out in front of him like a shield. Ben sets Rey down, drapes an arm over her chest, and laughs before he kisses the top of her head. 

“She’s lethal with it. I have the scar to prove it.”

When Finn’s eyes widen, Rey groans. Ben loves to tell this story but she hasn’t seen him in three days and the knot of worry that had been heavy in her stomach all that time is beginning to unfold. She speeds things along so she can get him inside. 

“Ben found me in the Wastes a few years back,” she tells him, smiling, “I was less trusting then.”

“You were feral,” Ben adds, with an affectionate squeeze of her upper arm. He tucks his chin into her shoulder and nuzzles at her jaw. Finn is already backing away and Rey can tell from his expression that he’s regretting his decision to approach them. 

Ben is too busy leaving smudges of ash on her neck to notice him leave. 

“You’re filthy,” she says, smiling wider than she has in days, but he’s undeterred.

“Come wash me, then.”

*

The underground wellsprings are so humid that tendrils of Rey’s hair are sticking to her forehead before they've even reached the entrance. Ben’s already stripping, shedding ash-blackened clothing along the tunnel in warning to anyone looking to take a bath. Rey waits until he dives into the water, coming up a moment later to scrub at his face with both palms. When she strips, she does it slowly, watching him push his wet hair back so he has an unobstructed view of her. His mouth is open, lower lip trembling on the surface of the water. She expects him to beckon her in, but instead, he treads water and softly calls her name. The cavern’s echo sends chills down her spine. 

“Sit at the edge of the pool.”

She tries not to be eager, humming and tapping her lips in contemplation, but the moment he grins at her, she sinks to her knees. Her feet are dangling over the rocky edge and into the water before he’s even begun to swim toward her. 

When he reaches her, he stands on the submerged ledge so his head comes level with her chest. The water laps gently around her calves but Rey can feel the ghost of that warmth slipping over her whole body. For a moment, he looks up at her, unsmiling, as if he’s too busy memorizing her face to remember what he wanted to do next. His breath is soft but hers is rebounding off the walls. 

Wet hands come around her hips, urging her closer to the edge. Rey widens her knees to accommodate the breadth of his torso between her legs. 

  
  


Gently, he nudges her backward until she’s resting on her elbows, watching him snake soft kisses down her stomach. He’s leaning on his forearm, palm up so she can lay her hand in his. He’s so gentle that Rey knows he wants to make her wait. It’s also how she knows something happened on the hunt. At some point over the last three days, he was afraid he wouldn’t make it back. Now that he is, he’s going to savor it until she’s half-mad with it. He’ll wait for tears. She doesn’t ask him what happened, biting her tongue until later, when he’ll be too sated to sugarcoat. 

His free hand is running lines up and down her thigh, trailing tickling droplets on sensitive skin that he follows with the tip of his tongue. But he won’t touch her where she’s starting to throb. The water drips from his hair onto her stomach. She can’t help but tilt her hips toward his mouth and she curses herself because he’s smiling, rising higher, away from where she wants him. 

She’s aching already, trying to control it, knowing he’s loving the pitch of her breath when he licks at her nipple or the squeeze of her eyes when he blows cool air across the stiff point. The trail of his tongue down her side makes her hold her breath until he ends it with a soft kiss on the straining tendon at the top of her thigh. He moves over her, rhythmic, dripping on her, touching her just enough to keep her on the edge until she lets a whimper escape and the sound of it is loud around them. 

By the time he lowers himself, chin touching her pubic bone and arm stretched to keep her fingers in his, Rey is panting. But Ben is still waiting. She opens her eyes and focuses on him. 

“Did you miss me?” he asks and Rey feels a tug in her chest.

“Yes. I missed you.”

He rubs his chin from side to side, pulling her taut. “Do you love me?”

She thinks of that first time, the way she’d argued herself into a corner of the empty common room, convinced that she resented him for dragging her to this place when she’d been fine on her own. He’d been fizzing with anger. Years of her sharp tongue, years of his carefully-targeted indifference, all condensed down into a shouting match over whose turn it was for night patrol. Hers and his. But she’d refused, adamant that Kaydel was due to share his shift. 

“You know what I think?” He’d yelled, and then pulled up tall, dropping his pointed finger, suddenly contemplative, “You don’t want to be alone with me. You’re afraid to be anywhere near me.”

His voice dropped lower, and what was burning there then was no longer anger. It was hurt, blooming pale over his cheeks. Rey, exposed by the change in the charge between them, felt disarmed. Aggressively vulnerable. 

“What do you think I’ll do to you, Rey?”

She doesn’t remember much after that, just flashes; closing the distance between them as his eyebrows raised high, a hot rush of his startled breath in her mouth, and the fumbling, urgent catch of her hands on his belt. 

“I’ve always loved you, Ben,” she says, now, but she can barely hear herself, “Even when I hated you.” 

He drops his chin, speaking into her dripping center. 

“Say it again.”

There are the tears he’s been waiting for, pricking hot, and she babbles as she watches his lips, pressing and releasing, inches from her. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying but whatever it is, he is satisfied with it. 

One long stripe with the flat of his tongue and she’s calling out. She’s so ready that his mouth feels like a jolt, like reaching high on her tip-toes, like burning. He licks her folds wide and steadily laps at her clit. It’s less than a minute before she’s coming and he has to hold her hip in place, softening his mouth to work her through it. She lays back on the rock, can’t hold herself up, and Ben is murmuring garbled praise, but he doesn’t stop. 

Her breathless cries turn to keening and Rey can feel heat building again, though her stomach and thighs are still quivering. It’s higher this time, more intense. She’s not afraid. He’s wrung her body to breaking point in so many ways and she’s always trusted him to keep her whole. But still, there’s the high-pitched hold at the top of her breath that’s bordering on panic. Her fingers are roving aimless over her skin like she can’t decide on a point to rest them. Her legs are kicking, as if she wants to back away, but she doesn’t want that and, even if she did, he wouldn’t let her now. Her feet slide higher on the rock ledge, soles curled tight. When she pulls at his hair, he hums into that blazing part of her he’s trapped between his lips. The ceiling fades and her voice is a guttural roar she can’t control. 

She’s not ready for the surge when he hauls himself from the water. The drench of warm water over her legs and stomach makes her gasp. 

“Beautiful,” he says, and crawls over her. 

He looks crazed, almost menacing, as he plants his knees on either side of her shoulders and lifts her head from the floor. Her mouth opens automatically, dreamy and soft.

He’s so hard that the moment his cock meets her tongue, he has to bend double over her. His palm slaps into the rock behind her head and Rey tastes clean spring water and salt. She is so relaxed Ben can hold her there and move the way he wants, tipping her chin down to wedge more of himself into her. She wraps her hands around his thighs, traction to move faster than he wants her to. Pay-back, of sorts. 

His hand tenses on the back of her head and she would smile now, if her mouth wasn’t so full of him. Ben’s breathing through thinned lips like he’s about to curse at her. The word doesn’t make it into the room because she hollows her cheeks and draws a pained “ahhhhh,” from him. The grip on the back of her neck gets tighter, fingers and thumb pressing into either side. She’s light-headed from the pressure, focused on relaxing her throat. Ben snaps his hips a little, the muscles of his stomach so tense that she knows he’s trying to stop himself. She sucks harder, groaning at the echoing aftershocks that pleasuring him draws from her. 

It’s her moaning that does it. It's always the thing that sends him over. He starts muttering, pushing until the tip of his cock makes her gag. 

“ _ Fuuuuck _ . This fucking mouth,” he says, through gritted teeth, like he’s angry. 

He pulls back a little, lifts them both higher, and grips the base of his dick to angle it. Rey opens her mouth as wide as she can, showing him her tongue like a taunt. His come hits the roof of her mouth and she watches him trying to breathe through it without crying out. He fails to stifle that wonderful, helpless whimper she craves. 

He cups her cheek when he pulls back, and Rey gulps louder than she needs to, licking a small drip from her upper lip. Dazed, Ben swings his leg so he can sit beside her and hauls her into his lap. 

It must have been close, Rey thinks, whatever had happened to him in the highlands, because he doesn’t let her go until he’s rock hard again. Once he has her back in their small nook, Rey urges him to fuck her, as hard as she can take it, because she wants to know what happened, and she knows exactly how to get what she wants from Ben. 

*

“It didn’t kill me,” Ben whispers, eyes directed at the ceiling and voice breathy from exhaustion, “It could have, but it didn’t.”

He’d been caught in the open, came across it drinking from the river, too late to run. Ben had stood on the opposite bank and called a warning to the others, knowing if he ran, it would likely follow and kill them all. The dragon had reared up, back high and neck curved low so it could drop its head. Fangs inches from his chest, Ben had thought of Rey, and waited. 

“It sniffed me,” he says, sounding like those times he talks to his parents in his sleep, “It breathed  _ in _ , instead of out, and then it flew away.”

Her fingers are digging into his side. She must be hurting him, but he doesn’t complain, just stares at the stone roof of their shared hollow, and sighs in disbelief at his own story. 

Rey is about to comfort him, she thinks, or maybe she’s about to cry. She doesn’t get the chance to find out because the siren blasts through the halls and Ben is kicking back the hides, scrambling into clothes without a word. 

In the tunnels, Hux and Rose are herding the younger ones down into the lower chambers, flattening them against the walls so Ben and Rey can race past unhindered. When they reach the courtyard, Luke is calling from the gangplank. This is where they split up to man opposite battlements and usually, Rey is the one who reaches for Ben, holding him for an extra second that Luke will chide her about later. But this time, Ben clasps his hand around the back of her neck and pulls her into a bruising kiss that scares her more than any dragon could. He’s running up the stone steps to the tower before she can say a word. 

When she reaches her station, Luke is dropping a pallet of heavy-armored spears beside the fire-hatch. 

“It’s headed for the farms,” he tells her in his calm, hard way, “If it reaches them, we won’t have enough food to last the winter. Thirty seconds and I’ll tip the scuttle.”

Rey nods and looks over his shoulder to where Ben is lining up his sights, his hatch-guard already open. Luke turns to run to the gates and she lifts her own Beskar shielding aside. It’s after dusk, barely enough light to see a brightly-colored beast. But this dragon is pure black. The one from the ash-fields. That same silver-tipped nightmare that had dropped his head to breathe in Ben’s scent. Rey feels a sinking in her stomach that threatens to take her down with it. 

In the Wastes, as a girl, she had fought off dragons alone, with only a steel shield she made from car doors and pipes hammered into sharp points to protect her. Her magic had been an afterthought, too weak to be anything other than a drain of her energy. She thought she knew fear then. But now, surrounded by metal that dragon fire cannot heat, holding weapons lined with forged iron, and magic strengthened by the force of Ben and Luke’s own power, she is more afraid than she has ever been. 

Above them, Luke calls out a countdown, cranking the turn for the scuttle over the gates. Rey forces herself to calm her breath and glances at Ben, who, for once, is looking back at her. He doesn’t smile, doesn’t wink, or try to make her laugh. He mouths words at her instead, and, even from this distance, she knows what they are. He looks away before she can shout them back and the first of the objects begins to fall. Rey turns, raises her foot to the sill, and holds onto the brace bar above her head. 

At first, it's a trickle, metal flasks and plates, costume jewelry and children's foil mirrors. They clink as they fall, landing in a heap outside the doors. Rey watches the dragon change its flight path, whipping in the air, twisting away from the farms, and diving toward the shiny, falling things. Ben fires first, armor-tipped arrow breaching the scales of its neck, and then Rey is leaning back, arm reaching far behind her. Her whole body pitches forward until her chest is over her raised knee and she lets the spear fly. It sinks into the dragon's side, and the bellowing screech of rage makes her squint. She grabs another spear and when she comes back to fire it, there is another of Ben’s arrows on the dragon's hind leg. 

The beast rears back and Rey sees the tell-tale rolling movement of its neck. She slams the Beskar into place as the blast of fire leaves its mouth. The force of the flame rattles the unsecured cover and Rey slams her shoulder into it to keep it in place. 

Ben’s watching her, his forearm braced against the metal, leaning his body weight into it. The fire has died, on her side, but it’s increased for him. His arms and neck are strained taut under the weight of it. Rey drops her shielding and adjusts her grip on the brace bar. She leans out backward, spear held suspended over her chest. 

The dragon has fastened its talons into the stonework on Ben's side of the fortress. It’s breathing a barrage of flame directly onto the hatch that he is standing behind. Rey's heart is pounding, pulling in her chest. The last of the shiny things are falling, blocking her view, so she can’t aim. But the dragon is ignoring them, an impossibility that makes her shout for Luke. She needs him to right the scuttle and hand her more spears but he’s too far away to hear her over the sound of burning. 

She lets her spear fly. The angle is off, catching the base of its tail. She’s about to duck back inside for another spear when a hand shoots out, passing her a replacement, saving precious seconds. It’s Finn’s hand, reaching back to grab another immediately. She sends four more lancets into the beast before it stops breathing fire and shakes its head at the sky. 

“Go help Ben!” she roars at Finn, taking the last spear from him.

The dragon is crawling oddly over the castle wall, head angled to the ground and tail up. Rey watches it happen, sends her last spear into it the moment before she realizes why it’s moved into this position. 

Ben will have eased up on the shielding, his muscles burning and torn from holding fast against the violence of the dragon’s breath. He’ll drop the Beskar plating in relief. And the dragon has positioned a talon over the hatch, poised to strike the moment it opens. 

Weaponless, Rey reaches deep and sends a thin bolt of blue from her fist into the side of the dragon. She’s never directed magic this way. It’s only meant for shielding. But she does it anyway, doesn’t question how. 

She’s screaming. For Ben, for Luke, for anything that can stop this. But nothing can. 

The magic blasts into scales, gaining her no more and an irritated flick of its tail. The shielding drops and the hatch opens a crack. He must still be leaning into it when the dragon hooks the tip of its talon into the opening and pulls it loose. When Beskar falls away, Ben is pulled through the gap, out into the open air. 

Rey watches in horror as he plummets. He doesn’t make a sound. Rey can’t take a breath large enough to let loose the wail inside her. Her hand slackens on the brace, so focused on Ben that she forgets she is hanging from the hatch, suspended by nothing. 

When the dragon’s claws wrap around him, plucking him from the air, Rey has time to think that it looks almost gentle. Then her fingers slip on the brace and she’s falling too. 

There’s a jolt as her ankle is caught. 

“Give me your hand!” Luke’s voice, so commanding that Rey obeys without thought. He and Finn stand together, hauling her back inside. As soon as she’s through, Rey grabs the nearest spear and turns to fire it at the retreating dragon. It’s too far away. Her spear drops far out over the fields, but she calls for another anyway, reaching back desperately. 

They don’t give it to her. 

When she looks back, ready to scream, Finn is bending over Luke. He has fallen to his knees, clutching at his chest. His face is pale, eyes bulging. For a second, Rey’s eyes flit to the pallet behind him and then out into the night, where the tiny flash of the dragon’s wing is barely visible in the distance. 

“Get Rose,” she says, but Finn doesn’t hear her. She has to pull at him, yank on his arm so she can get between them and help Luke sit against the wall. 

“Find Rose,” she yells and Finn runs, legs pumping, back down stone stairs. 

Rey is watching everything happen as if she’s not there at all. She lays a hand on Luke’s forehead to check his temperature, she coaches him to breathe, she takes his pulse and immediately forgets the number. He’s talking to her, voice dry and quaking, but Rey can’t understand the words. She feels like she’s underwater. 

When Rose arrives, Rey slumps down against the wall opposite. Somewhere, deep down inside her, there is screaming. It’s so loud that she’s amazed the others can’t hear it. They move over Luke, Rose with a stethoscope held to his chest, barking for a stretcher, Finn grasping him under the shoulders to move him gently onto his back. Rey watches all of it and the screaming gets so loud she thinks her ears will bleed. 

Without warning, she leans to the side and vomits. Finally, the others can hear the screaming. It comes from her in waves that make them panic. There’s a sharp pain in her neck and Rose is at her back, urging her to lie down, telling her everything will be OK. But that’s not true. The swirl of a sedative moves hot through her and nothing will be alright, not ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, please do not look at this fic too closely - I am just having a bunch of unedited dragon-fueled fun and it is a brilliant distraction from my longfic, [Ignition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810689/chapters/57208216), (which I am consistently terrified of posting, ha!) 
> 
> Thanks to [Bee_Woop](https://twitter.com/bee_woop) for the fantastic sketch that inspires the final chapter!
> 
> Please come say Hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DenzerWriter)(Even though I just watched The Social Dilemma and am now horrified by The Algorithm!)


	3. The Scent of Conjury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is gone... or is he?
> 
> Not gonna lie, this chapter is mostly pain and then a dragon fight.  
> Please read it anyway, it took soooooo long to complete and Twisted Mirror made this beautiful moodboard for it that I could just screech about all day long. 

The compound is darker than usual. Hux has forgotten to light the torches on the back wall. It serves Rey’s purpose well. For the first time since she’s known him, she’s thankful for Hux’s incompetence.

Sticking to the shadows, Rey slinks toward the main gates. She checks the fastening on the spears strapped to her back and taps the water canister on her hip. One spear is held loose in her hand, just in case.

Her plan is simple: Find the dragon’s lair and kill it.

There is another part of that plan, a contingency so fragile she won’t let herself think it. It sits in the back of her mind, a humming, desperate hope.

Using the truck for cover, she crosses the compound and sprints toward the gates.

“Rey.”

It’s Poe’s voice, but when he steps out of the shadows of the archway, the others follow. Hux stands behind him, using him as a shield. Rose and Kaydel step forward on either side of Poe and even Finn is there, though he hangs back by the gates as if he wishes he was somewhere else.

She jogs to a stop as Poe crosses his arms.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Rose lifts her hand as if to touch his elbow in warning, but drops it when he keeps talking.

“Did you think about what happens to us when we lose you, too?”

He’s so angry that Rey has to swallow before she stands a little taller, raising her chin.

“I’m coming back.” Rey’s not sure of that, hasn’t given it much thought at all. Her plan only had two steps.

Poe’s laugh is harsh. “Yeah? After you kill a dragon with your bare hands?”

Rey tightens her fingers on the spear. Her cheeks are burning. She knows how it sounds, like she’s lost her mind. Maybe she has, but she’s going, and none of them can stop her.

“They’re just animals,” she whispers, not quite able to look at them, “They bleed, they hurt, just like us. They can be killed.”

“You don’t know that,” Poe says, jaw set like iron.

Finn perks up, Rey watches his mouth open and then close again. He sinks back against the gate and Rey hardens her gaze. She is made of strong things. She survived the Wastes alone. She can do this.

“You want me to forget him? You want me to pretend it’s OK that he’s...” She stops, sucking breath into her closing throat.

Maybe she’s not made of strong things anymore. Maybe loving Ben has tempered her and there’s softened ash in her belly now, where there used to be flames.

As she composes herself, Poe scrubs at his eyes with the base of his hands. When he drops them, his voice is thicker.

“I don’t want you to forget him, Rey. I want you to mourn hi—”

“He’s not dead!” Rey shouts with far more force than she thought she had left. When she’d first woken from the sedative, she had stumbled out of bed on legs that wouldn’t hold her weight, mumbling about finding Ben until they’d restrained her, sedated her again. In the hours since she woke that second time, she hasn’t done anything but sit by Luke’s cot in the infirmary, watching his chest rise and fall steadily, waiting for her chance to run. She’s exhausted, but she still roars loud enough to rustle the birds in the nests that line the roof.

“I saw it, Poe. The dragon took him alive. He could still be...”

It’s Poe’s turn to cut her off but he doesn’t shout. He winces and holds up both hands like what she’s saying is hurting him. When Rey goes silent, he speaks again, flint-sharp and quiet as a knife.

“If he was taken alive, then I hope, for Ben’s sake, he’s dead now. That it was quick.”

Kaydel puts her hand over her mouth. Rose backs up until she knocks into Finn, stays there, and watches Poe with horrified eyes.

Rey can’t shout again, can barely take a breath. She’s shaking, a quivering that spreads from the center of her chest, through her stomach, and down her legs. Her voice comes out in a wavering hiss.

“You heartless—”

“I loved him too, Rey!”

Poe roars it, tendons rising along his neck, loud enough that the silence in its wake seems to ring. He takes a step toward her, pleading and contrite.

“You knew him for five years but he was my best friend my whole life. And he would have done anything to protect you. Anything.’ He takes another step forward and Rey has enough presence of mind to back away. Poe’s throat is working, choking on the words, “If I let you go after him, he would never forgive me.”

Glassy-eyed, he rams home his point, “And it would kill Luke.”

There is a whimpering sound coming from her. She can hear it, feel it in her throat, but Rey has no control over it. She doesn’t move, she can’t, and her fingers tighten on her spear. No matter what Poe says, there is a chance that Ben is still alive. She hears herself try to explain, clinging to that tiny hope that cuts her voice to shreds.

“He could still be—”

“He is gone, Rey!” Poe is crying openly now, shouting unchecked, “He’s gone. And if you walk out those gates, you’ll be gone too.” One huge exhale softens his whole body, defeated, “So I am begging you, I’m begging. Please, help me mourn my friend. Please don’t make me lose another.”

For a moment, Rey thinks he’s moved closer. But it’s her that’s stepped forward, pulled by the pain that’s so clear in his voice. She’s within his reach now and Poe scans her face, uncertain. She doesn’t move when he reaches out, only flinching when his fist closes around the spear she’s holding. It takes effort, but he tugs until Rey’s fingers come open, pulling it away from her. It clatters on the stone by her feet.

And Rey is falling too, taking Poe with her, held tight against his chest where the sound of his sobbing is an unbearable, unwanted comfort. The others follow, coming close and dipping down until Rey is surrounded by everyone who loves her, except one.

The next morning she wakes to the steady, repeated clanging that signals the forge is in use. Ben loves it there, the heat and the effort and the skill it takes to make something useful or deadly. So, when she reaches for him, it’s not entirely worrying that he’s not beside her, sleeping.

It takes a second to remember.

Her fingers grip the sheet, digging. She curls onto her side, pulls her knees high, and rocks back and forth. Even if she could scream, roar this white-hot grief out of her chest, she wouldn’t do it. It belongs to him. She will hold it, because it’s all she has left to hold.

There’s no way to tell time, no windows in their underground nook. The only light comes from the crack in their privacy curtain, wavering and dull, from the torches that line the tunnels. She pulls the hides over her head.

Sometime later, she hears Rose’s muffled voice, smells food that makes her stomach turn. Rey burrows deeper under the covers and waits until Rose gives up calling her. When it’s quiet again, she reaches an unsteady hand into the cubby, finds their flint, and scratches a sparking mark into the wall above their bed.

🐉

There hasn’t been an attack since Ben was taken. It’s made them all lax.

Rey does her chores in silence, practices her forms, and then she walks, further and further away from the castle. She walks for longer than she’d ever dared, even when she’d first arrived at Yavin, so full of vitriol and distrust that she’d regularly ignored the safe-distance markers Ben had set for her.

He’d be mad, if he could see her now. And part of her wants him to be. Because she’d been right. She had come to rely on him, more than she ever feared she would, and now he’s gone and her world is filtered grey by the loss. The guilt hits as soon as she comes home. An empty bed reminds her that Ben’s not here and this would hurt him if he was. But it doesn’t stop her from leaving again the next day, sneaking back so that Poe won’t spot her and run to Luke. Not that he would scold her for it. The truth is that, like her, Luke doesn’t say much of anything these days. What he does say is hard to understand, falling from his mouth sideways, like a spoil-tip subsiding.

On the nights where Rey can’t stand another second alone in a bed that only smells like her, she goes to Luke's room. Tonight, he lets her in with a wordless nod, and Rey curls up on his couch to worry her necklace between her fingertips until she falls asleep. It’s a perfect arrowhead, hammered by Ben’s strong arms, crudely attached to a thin leather strip and Rey still feels guilty over it.

She’d known it would happen. Resources are scarce and Ben’s bow had to be given to someone. Finn was a good choice. But he had caught her staring at him during practice and she knew her face showed betrayal. She’d turned away, tried to hide it, but that night, the necklace was on her pillow and it hasn’t left her skin for a moment since.

Luke is reading, the only pastime Rose allows him since he’d left the infirmary. When he looks up, his eyes are wary. He doesn’t say anything, lets the book drop open on his chest, and pushes himself a little higher in his bed. The longer the silence stretches the more Rey feels like he’s asking a question.

People have been asking her this same question for weeks, trying to goad a response out of her.

Rose comes at her softly, lets her know she can talk when she wants to, tells her that silence doesn’t help and that the only way Rey will ever feel better is to cry until there’s nothing left. Then cry some more. In response, Rey nods, wordless.

Poe comes in strong, asking her if she even misses Ben at all, hoping for a fight where she’ll scream at him. Rey meets his aggression with that same wordless stare because that's what will hurt him the most and she can't help it.

But this look from Luke feels different. His lack of speech isn’t a choice and it’s something Rey can help with.

It’s difficult, after so long without talking. Pushing past the barrier her dry throat has created feels like blowing on embers. But Rey does it, for Luke, for herself, for Ben.

“I miss him so much.”

The words come out scratchy and hoarse, with the emphasis in all the wrong places. They burn in her throat and Rey wishes she’d brought her canteen with her, the only thing she’d brought here from the Wastes. She had handed it to Ben when they first met, while he bled from a wound in his side that she’d put there. He'd said ‘thank you’ and shocked her into loving him as he took small sips. Like a fool, she had fought it, and now, all that wasted time feels like sin.

Luke tilts his head like he’d heard all the echoes that admission had brought to her mind. Like he knows she wants to scream and pound her fists on something so hard it will break her skin. She waits for him to answer. It takes him a while to turn things in his mind since the heart attack. Three steps behind where he used to be a step ahead. It’s not sad, Rey thinks, because at least he is still here.

Eventually, Luke raises his hand, trembling, and jabs an insistent finger, pointing at her throat.

“Shiny,” he says, mouth turned down because the words won’t come.

Rey tucks her necklace back into her shirt.

“Yes,” she agrees, “He was.”

🐉

“Rey?”

For a split second, it’s Ben’s voice. Her dreams of him are always so vivid, swirling like she’s spinning in the air instead of laying flat on a damp pillow. Her name comes softly again and Rey hears that hesitant quality that Finn still has, even after all these months. She opens her eyes.

The drape across her hollow bed-area is pulled back a little and Finn’s shadowed profile hovers in the gap, face turned away and eyes down.

“Your shift started a while back…” he turns to study her face, head tilted in consideration, “Never mind. Get some rest, I’ll cover it.”

“No, it’s fine,” she says but makes no move to get up, “Sorry. I’ll just be a minute.”

He wavers in the sliver of parted curtain. Instead of leaving, he opens it wider and motions to the foot of her mattress. When she nods at him, he slips the crossbow off his back and sits heavily.

It’s quiet. She’s breathing from the very top of her lungs the way she has since she lost Ben and Finn is incredibly silent for a man with such presence, as most trappers are.

“Can I ask you something?”

He sounds reluctant and Rey nods, encouraging.

“What does Rose like? You know, like, girly things. Like, flowers?”

Rey’s laugh is unfamiliar, jarring, and she stifles it immediately. She can’t remember the last time she’d heard it and there is a wave of crushing guilt in its wake. She snuggles deeper under the hides to gather herself.

“She uses Yarrumroot oil as an antiseptic. But she hates digging for them. Bring her Yarramroot. She’d like that.”

Finn’s hand pats the covers beside his thigh as he repeats her answer. She feels the shift as he goes to stand but he doesn’t get up. He turns to her instead, and his voice is so low that Rey’s attention is jerked toward him.

“It’s possible, you know,” he tells her, “to kill them.”

She doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about. The hides slip down as she sits, eyes sharp.

“How?”

“You did it that night. The night the dragon took him, I saw you form a bolt.”

There’s an ache in her chest that Rey is accustomed to, but it sharpens now, so she has to bring her hand there, pressing the arrowhead hard into her sternum.

“It didn’t work.”

“No,” Finn tells her, ”Their scales protect them. But only the back of their body is scaled. Everywhere else is vulnerable.”

Rey has hundreds of questions, she can feel them bubbling inside her. Some of that fizzing excitement must leak into her expression because Finn looks afraid. Regretful.

Rey schools herself back to her usual numbness.

“Thanks, Finn. Go get some sleep, I’ll take shift.”

His eyes flick to the wall above her head as he stands, but he turns away fast, closes the curtain. There are so many marks now.

🐉

Rey has to practice as far away from the castle as she can, so the valley winds will blow the scent of conjury from her clothes on the walk home. Once, she took the truck as far as the burned forest, but Poe had noticed the stink of magic in the upholstery the following day and she’d been careful after that.

Over and over she tries to form a bolt. But without Luke and Ben to bolster her magic, all Rey can manage to do is burn her hands to a bubbled, bleeding mess.

She’s at least three klicks out when the siren starts, almost six months since the last attack. Her palms are raw from fruitless practice and she can’t even see the castle through the thick scrub woods. The siren rips clear across the valley, recriminating.

She’s on her feet in seconds, tearing through the undergrowth to the hunting trails. As she bursts from the scrublands, the valley opens out before her. She searches the sky for those silver wingtips and finds something else entirely. High above is a slash of red on a sleek body that is so black it shimmers in the sunlight. It’s spiraling down into the valley, wings pulled close. It is entirely silent.

The adrenaline spurs her forward, racing towards the fortress on legs that pump so hard they feel cold. Far ahead of her, bounding up the hill toward the castle, is Finn. There’s a bag of Yarrumroot slung across his back, slowing his usual lightning-fast pace, but he’ll make it to the open gates in plenty of time.

Rey should be looking for cover, but instead, she slows her pace and watches the dragon loop in the air and dive down in a graceful arc. For a second, Rey thinks it’s beautiful. The thought feels like a spear through her chest.

Her hand is plunging into the collar of her shirt before she can stop herself. The leather pulls her ear and she’s holding the arrowhead high, waving it in an arc so the light will catch it. She’d pressed her fingers to the metal every night for months. In the waning sunlight, it gleams.

It takes less than a second for the dragon to twist in the air, to spread its wings impossibly wide. One beat and it’s shooting across the valley floor toward her, flattening the long grasses beneath it.

Rey screams. It should be fear she’s feeling but that’s not it at all. She is so angry her hands vibrate with it. This is not the same dragon, she knows that, but she’s going to kill it. She’s going to kill them all. Her arms raise high and the bolt is already there, rage-fueled and burning. Head on, she faces the attack and lets the bolt fly like a spear.

The beast is quick, ducking to the side so the magic glances off its neck. A nick, nothing more. There is the smallest spurt of brownish blood and a screech that cuts off as the dragon’s belly hits the ground. Rey can feel it where she stands, the drag of the dirt catching, its talons gripping. When it jerks its head up, it skids to an awkward stop in front of her, pushing up a mound of earth beneath its chest.

It’s Ben she thinks of, while she stands with exhausted arms raised toward the thing that will kill her. And the dragon stares. She watches it roll its neck, smells the ion-burn of dragon-fire even before the orange glow reaches the back of its wide-spread jaws. In vain, she tries to summon another bolt. But she can’t pull deep enough. The magic fizzles in her hand. She can’t even form a shield. Rey closes her eyes as the flames burst from between the dragon’s teeth.

The heat is stunning, holding her in place. She waits for the pain but it doesn’t come. When she opens her eyes Rey is surrounded by fire, a wide circle that starts and ends where the dragon is drawing itself high.

It’s shaking, pulling back, rocking its head from side to side in a strangely human gesture. Without warning, its eyes lock on hers, and there’s a jolt in Rey’s stomach, recognition she quashes desperately. When it looks away again, the dragon breathes an angry blaze straight up in the air. It doesn't screech. It doesn't make a sound, bar the roar of flame.

There’s nowhere to go in the cage of fire and Rey’s legs are trembling suddenly, terrified of this behavior she’s never seen before. The beast tips its head to look at her again. It swallows, turning to cough smoke away from her.

She could scream. Instead, she tries to form another bolt, hissing at the pain in her palms. There’s blood there now, skin raw and torn. The dragon sniffs, huffing like it’s agitated, shifting its weight back and forth. Rey does scream then, rage merged with confusion and all that fear she’s been suppressing. Because she’d seen it.

The way that long neck had bent toward its raised shoulder, like it was holding a wince in a peculiar manner she recognizes.

That’s not possible. None of this is possible.

She should be dead. But instead, the dragon is snorting, clawing at the earth, and slamming its tail into the grass behind it. Its wings spread wide, curling in again fast. The downdraft knocks her on her back and the fires blow to nothing.

The dragon's shadow blocks the sunlight and Rey is swept up. And up. And up higher again, in surging, stomach-turning vaults.

She grasps at the thing holding her, afraid to look down. Her palms are burning and there’s a throbbing in her belly that she’s felt before. It spreads to her arms, a power she hasn’t felt in months. It’s her magic, bolstered, stronger than ever. All at once, she feels like she could push it from her fingertips with nothing more than a brief thought. But she doesn’t.

She holds all that new power in the deepest part of herself and grasps tight to scales that feel like silk. All she can see is sky and dark red underbelly. There’s another swell of rushing wind and Rey’s ear’s pop, a bursting pain that pulls her under.

🐉

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks for reading this painful chapter and apologies for the delay with it. 
> 
> This looks familiar, you say?  
> Why yes, I did indeed accidently post the draft version of this chapter a few weeks back during an incredibly sleep-deprived evening. And yes, I didn't spot what I had done until the next day. And absolutely, I deleted the edited version off my computer and had to do all the work all over again - Thank you for noticing! hahaha! (this is a manic laugh, if you can't tell) 
> 
> But at least the last chapter is complete so there's only a week until the smutty, smutty ending! 
> 
> Huge thanks to [RedRoseWhite](https://twitter.com/foxfleur) for the beta, and for making me feel better about my dumbassery. If you liked the angst in this chapter, you may like her fic, [Shadow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27259606), which is exquisite, and you can read it here. 
> 
> Massive thanks to [Twisted Mirror](https://twitter.com/TwistedMirror_) for the amazing Moodboard. I really can't stop looking at it. 
> 
> Finally, in light of my massive mistake and subsequent mortification-spiral, would you please consider leaving a comment or kudos so I feel less like a complete plonker? They are so, so appreciated! :-)

**Author's Note:**

> Dear [AquaWolfGirl](https://twitter.com/aquawolfgirl) \- I knew I would destroy your adorable prompt with my angsty writing but I did my best and I had a bunch of fun with Ch1 so thanks for the inspiration!
> 
> Thanks, as always, to the wonderful and lovely [RedRoseWhite](https://twitter.com/foxfleur) for the beta!
> 
> Nobody look too closely at this fic - I'm just over here having a laugh because Dragons are cool and you can't tell me otherwise. 
> 
> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DenzerWriter)


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